SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches 27 Starlink satellites from California

SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket Monday from Vandenberg Space Force Base, California, carrying another batch of Starlink satellites. Liftoff off of the Starlink 15-25 mission from Space Launch Complex 4 East occurred at 5:28 p.m. PDT (8:28 p.m. EDT / 0028 UTC). The rocket headed on a southerly trajectory along the California coast as it targeted an orbit inclined 70 degrees to the Equator. The first-stage booster, serial number B1088, launching for a 20th time, landed on the drone ship ‘Of Course I Still Love You’ nearly 8.5 minutes into the flight. The booster previously flew the NROL-126, Transporter-12, SPHEREx, NROL-57 and USSF-366 mission, plus 14 previous Starlink delivery runs. If all goes according to plan the 27 Starlink V2 Mini Optimized satellites will be deployed into a 266 kilometer high orbit a little more than an hour after liftoff.